STALKING BILL FIXES LOOPHOLE; LAW ENFORCEMENT PRAISES PROPOSAL

A bill designating stalking as a crime in Missouri sits on Gov. Mel Carnahan's desk, waiting to be signed into law. Local law enforcement officials say such a law would come in handy.

"We're about the 30th state to pass this law since California first passed their law in 1990," said Cape Girardeau County Prosecutor Morley Swingle. "That alone indicates that the states believe that it must be a good idea; something that is necessary."

Stalkers commonly are identified as people who relentlessly follow other people to the point of annoying or scaring the victimized party.

One of the most notorious recent examples is the woman who has been arrested several times for her ceaseless pursuit of late-night talk show host David Letterman.

The prosecutor said the law would close a legal loophole which has rendered police and the courts powerless to stop someone from stalking another person.

"We had a case within the past year where a woman in a local business had a man start following her home," Swingle said. "He did it over and over again and there wasn't anything that could be done about it under Missouri law.

Fortunately, the man was on probation for another crime, and a special condition of his probation was that he stay away from the woman he was stalking.

"If he had not been on probation, there was absolutely no action that we could have taken against him," Swingle said.

Cape Girardeau Police Chief Howard Boyd Jr. provided another instance illustrating the bill's merit.

"Recently, we had a convicted sex offender spending a lot of time outside area businesses watching female clerks as they worked," Boyd said. "When the officers would arrive on the scene, he would tell them that there wasn't a thing that they could do to him - and in most cases he was right."

If signed, Boyd said, the new law can help officers stop situations from dangerously escalating.

"In a lot of cases where our hands had been tied - particularly in cases where ex-parte protection orders had been denied - we can now step in and arrest the stalker and end the situation before it gets real serious," he said. "I see good things coming from this bill."

Currently, Swingle said, stalkers only can be charged if they cross the line enough to merit trespassing, harassment or assault charges.

"If a person is lurking several yards behind you or following you around, it's frightening, but it's not illegal," he said. "This law really puts some teeth in the current ex-parte laws and hopefully will discourage this kind of behavior in the future."

The prosecutor said the law classifies the first offense as a misdemeanor unless it was otherwise aggravated by a "credible threat of personal harm or injury." In that case, the first offense would be a Class D felony, punishable by up to five years in prison.

Those violating the stalking law a second time would automatically be charged with a Class D felony.

If an injunction or ex-parte protection order is already in place, the crime would then be classified as aggravated stalking, a Class C felony.

The bill, coupled with a recent constitutional amendment setting new guidelines for judges to set bail, could effectively keep stalkers off the streets until their cases come to trial.

"Before, the judge based the amount of bail on the severity of the crime and the likeliness of the defendant to show up for future court dates," Swingle said.

"Now, judges have the leeway to base bail or condition of bond on the defendant's imminent danger to the victim, and in extreme cases, can deny bail completely."